Couple allegedly tricked AI investors into funding wedding, houses

To further the alleged scheme, he “often described non-existent revenue, inflated cash balances,” and “otherwise exaggerated customer relationships,” the US Attorney’s Office said, to convince investors to spend millions. As Beckman’s accomplice, Lau allegedly manipulated documents, including documents allegedly stolen from the venture capital firm that employed her while supposedly hiding her work for GameOn.

The scheme apparently also included forging audits and bank statements, as well as using “the names of at least seven real people—including fake emails and signatures—without their permission to distribute false and fraudulent GameOn financial and business information and documents with the intent to defraud GameOn and its investors,” the US Attorney’s Office said.

At perhaps the furthest extreme, Lau allegedly falsified account statements, including once faking a balance of over $13 million when that account only had $25 in it. The FBI found that GameOn’s revenues never exceeded $1 million in any year, while Beckman allegedly inflated sales to investors, including claiming that sales in one quarter in 2023 got as high as $72 million.

Beckman and Lau allegedly went to great lengths to hide the scheme while diverting investor funds to their personal accounts. While GameOn employees allegedly sometimes went without paychecks, Beckman and Lau allegedly stole funds to buy expensive San Francisco real estate and pay for their wedding in 2023. If convicted, they may be forced to forfeit a $4.2 million house, a Tesla Model X, and other real estate and property purchased with their allegedly ill-gotten gains, the indictment said.

It took about five years for the cracks to begin to show in Beckman’s scheme. Beginning in 2023, Beckman increasingly started facing “questions about specific customers and specific revenue from those customers,” the indictment said. By February 2024, Beckman at last “acknowledged to at least one GameOn consultant” that a flagged audit report “did not contain accurate financial information,” but allegedly he “attempted to shift blame to others for the inaccuracies.”